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vwcruisn

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 7, 2003
193
1
Santa Monica, Ca
ok im having major problems with my 17" powerbook. it was sleeping and when i opened the lid, nothing happened, screen was black and it would do nothing. I held the power button down and it restarted. But I couldnt get it to boot. I did a safe boot and got in and got all my data. I repaired all my permissions and everything and ran a bunch of disk utilities and couldnt get it to boot still. The weird thing is, a lot of times after a restart the screen will stay black well after the turn on chime. When i bang it on the back, above the battery, sometimes the screen starts and attempts to boot. The apple logo will show and the litttle rotating sun, which freezes halfway through. I have managed to get a hardware test in (after having to bang the bottom for the screen to turn on). Everything passed. I tried zapping the pram, after the third chime, the screen still wouldnt come on. I eventually erased the entire disk and reinstalled jaguar ( i was running panther before). After it installed, i got the welcome screen , and began registration and halfway through it froze. I hit in on the back again and I got a kernel panic. I restarted and restarted and restarted and got it going again, and it froze during registration again. I reinstalled jaguar again and still cant get anywhere. I really don't know if banging on the back is doing anything or if it is a weird coincidence. Sometimes when its frozen on the startup screen and it freezes, it will unfreeze after i hit it.. only to freeze again shortly. What can i do???
 

vwcruisn

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 7, 2003
193
1
Santa Monica, Ca
ok this is so weird. i am on the computer right now. I took out one of the sticks of ram and it loaded right up.. i registed and the desktop appeared. i restarted and it worked fine.

My only concern is... is it possible that a faulty stick of ram could have been causing those problems? The hardware test said my ram was fine. Im stoked my computer is working, but I dont want to spend all night rebuilding the system only to have it happen again. But as far as I can tell its working great.. any suggestions?
 

thehuncamunca

macrumors 6502
Jul 9, 2003
447
0
NJ
try it without that stick of ram for a few days, if you don't see any problems return that stick

vwcruisn said:
ok this is so weird. i am on the computer right now. I took out one of the sticks of ram and it loaded right up.. i registed and the desktop appeared. i restarted and it worked fine.

My only concern is... is it possible that a faulty stick of ram could have been causing those problems? The hardware test said my ram was fine. Im stoked my computer is working, but I dont want to spend all night rebuilding the system only to have it happen again. But as far as I can tell its working great.. any suggestions?
 

vwcruisn

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 7, 2003
193
1
Santa Monica, Ca
thehuncamunca said:
try it without that stick of ram for a few days, if you don't see any problems return that stick

DOH, everything was going fine and i decided to tap the area i had been hitting before to boot, and i got a kenel panic, and once again, when i turn on the computer, the screen is black. Is it possible the video card is loose or something? I circled in the pic below where i have been tapping. Whats located behind here? anything I can do? thanks in advance..


Image-38810C62725C11D8.jpg

sorry for the poor qualitity.. but you get the idea
 

Opteron

macrumors 6502
Feb 10, 2004
434
0
South Australia
If it's still under warrently/apple care, take it back.

Even if it isn't take it back and get a profecional opinion.

Try pooping the case off and having a look, it could be something as trivial as a loose power connector.
 

caveman_uk

Guest
Feb 17, 2003
2,390
1
Hitchin, Herts, UK
Opteron said:
If it's still under warrently/apple care, take it back.

Even if it isn't take it back and get a profecional opinion.

Try pooping the case off and having a look, it could be something as trivial as a loose power connector.
Don't do this if it's still under warranty. There is no need to jeopardise your warranty by opening the case... Take it back and get it fixed.
 

vwcruisn

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 7, 2003
193
1
Santa Monica, Ca
caveman_uk said:
Don't do this if it's still under warranty. There is no need to jeopardise your warranty by opening the case... Take it back and get it fixed.

nope its all me.. no warranty. i opened her up but didnt see anything offhand, of course im no expert. is there any possibility the logic board is bad? i wouldnt think that would cause this (i would think that the computer would be completely dead if it were)... but what do i know. it seems like somethings got to be loose?
 

Counterfit

macrumors G3
Aug 20, 2003
8,195
0
sitting on your shoulder
vwcruisn said:
ok this is so weird. i am on the computer right now. I took out one of the sticks of ram and it loaded right up.. i registed and the desktop appeared. i restarted and it worked fine.

My only concern is... is it possible that a faulty stick of ram could have been causing those problems? The hardware test said my ram was fine. Im stoked my computer is working, but I dont want to spend all night rebuilding the system only to have it happen again. But as far as I can tell its working great.. any suggestions?
Okay, it really sounds like something is loose, so you should take it back, opening it is not worth the trouble, see?
 

vwcruisn

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 7, 2003
193
1
Santa Monica, Ca
Counterfit said:
Okay, it really sounds like something is loose, so you should take it back, opening it is not worth the trouble, see?


well last night i disassembled the entire thing. i removed the logic board and didnt really see anything noticably wrong. I reassembled the whole thing back together, but i had been up all night and it was 6am and i broke some connector that attached a big cable to the logic board underneath. The computer works great now.. but I have no airport.. i guess thats what I busted? Anyway, i can live without airport just fine.. im just glad my powerbook works. :D
 

Opteron

macrumors 6502
Feb 10, 2004
434
0
South Australia
vwcruisn said:
well last night i disassembled the entire thing. i removed the logic board and didnt really see anything noticably wrong. I reassembled the whole thing back together, but i had been up all night and it was 6am and i broke some connector that attached a big cable to the logic board underneath. The computer works great now.. but I have no airport.. i guess thats what I busted? Anyway, i can live without airport just fine.. im just glad my powerbook works. :D

Good to see it's back and working.

Also Poping the case off doesn't void warrenty, since how do people instally RAM after their purchace?
 

vwcruisn

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 7, 2003
193
1
Santa Monica, Ca
Opteron said:
Good to see it's back and working.

Also Poping the case off doesn't void warrenty, since how do people instally RAM after their purchace?


i dunno but i gutted the whole thing haha.. i should have taken pics... i couldnt believe how much crap there was inside :D


that link posted above about the 17 incher opened up.. thats nothin :p
 
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